Here we go: the Romney campaign issues a statement on the "47% tapes":

Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy. As the governor has made clear all year, he is concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government, including the record number of people who are on food stamps, nearly one in six Americans in poverty, and the 23 million Americans who are struggling to find work. Mitt Romney's plan creates 12 million new jobs in four years, grows the economy and moves Americans off of government dependency and into jobs.

Oh yes, that will put the whole thing to rest. How that's campaign relaunch going then?

Barro says the video "has killed Mitt Romney's campaign for president," and goes on to argue:

On the tape, Romney explains that his electoral strategy involves writing off nearly half the country as unmoveable Obama voters. As Romney explains, 47% of Americans "believe that they are victims." He laments: "I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

So what's the upshot? "My job is not to worry about those people," he says. He also notes, describing President Obama's base, "These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax."

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill reports in from Des Moines, where Paul Ryan has finally appeared and addressed a crowd at a campaign rally:

No-one told Paul Ryan that there has been a change in campaign strategy. He stuck to his usual stump speech, almost all of it directed at the "divisive" Barack Obama. In the morning the Romney campaign team, in a tacit admission that the present strategy is not working, said there will be a switch from focusing mainly on attacking Obama to fleshing out Romney's own policy.

Ed Gillespie, one of the main Romney strategists, said there would be more about "the specifics" of what Romney and Ryan would do if they were in the White House. But Ryan either has not been told or not had a chance to write a new campaign speech.

He told a crowd of about 200-300 in Des Moines, Iowa, that the Romney-Ryan plan is "to get this mess under control" and there is a moral obligation to get debt reduced. Not a lot of "specifics" there. He talked, as he has done before, about how exploiting energy in the US could help create more jobs, but that was the extent of his discussion of policy.

It was a fairly downbeat affair. After the initial burst of excitement when he was chosen as Romney's running-mate, the crowds for Ryan have become more modest. Parts of Iowa are deeply conservative and Romney had a hard time during the Republican primary. Even now, it was not an entirely loyal crowd. While Ryan was talking up what a good job Romney had done as governor of Massachusetts, there was a cry from the audience: "Romneycare".

It's shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.

Mitt Romney's '47%' gaffe

More on the secret video filmed of Mitt Romney's comments at a fundraising event - the key section is one in which Romney labels the 47% of US citizens who don't pay federal income taxes as "dependent on the government".

It's a false statement since it covers a wide range of people, the retired, social welfare recipients, the out-of-work, earned income credit recipients and others, and it's a remark that could come back and bite Romney on the proverbial.

Here's what Romney says in the video:

There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… These are people who pay no income tax.

According to Mother Jones's version, Romney goes on to say:

So my job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Bloomberg's Josh Barro is among those who think these unguarded remarks could become a political liability for Romney:

Still in Iowa, the Guardian's Ewen MacAskill hears from members of the crowd waiting to see Paul Ryan that last week's eruption in the Mddle East and North Africa might have a bigger impact than many think:

Chatting to the crowd: the big issue is not the economy - unemployment is about 5 per cent in Iowa - it is the Middle East. There is lots of anger over the attacks on US embassies there. It could become a big election issue.

Jane Whetstone (53), an insurance agent from Menlo, Iowa, and a Romney-Ryan supporter, told me: "I know he will probably not talk about it but I would like to hear about that terrorist thing. The media are trying to blame Romney but it is Obama's dumb policies. I do not want my taxpayer money going there when they are killing our people and burning our embassies."

Mother Jones has obtained video of Romney at this intimate fundraiser — where he candidly discussed his campaign strategy and foreign policy ideas in stark terms he does not use in public — and has confirmed its authenticity.

Other than the 47% line, there's nothing really slam-dunk out-there by Romney in the video – if anything it confirms that he's as you'd expect, a mildly dull wonk, in private as in public – although there are some other odd statements and interesting insights.

There's one obvious gaffe. In a long section where Romney talks about his campaign's strategy, Romney tells his hidden audience:

What he's going to do, by the way, is try and vilify me as someone who's been successful, or who's, you know, closed businesses or laid people off, and is an evil bad guy. And that may work.

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill is in Des Moines, Iowa, where it has literally rained on Paul Ryan's parade. Or the vice presidential candidate's campaign event at least:

Rain has forced Ryan's planned event by the river inside, into a conference room at a nearby hotel. He has attracted a crowd of about 200-300, not the kind of pulling-power Sarah Palin had or even that he himself attracted in the fortnight after he was announced as Romney's running-mate.

In spite of that, Ryan is performing the task that Romney appointed him, attracting the kind of conservatives that had been cool about the presidential candidate.

Asked whether she preferred Romney or Ryan, Ann Grogan (74), retired after a career in accounting, did not hesitate. "Mostly Ryan. He has more charisma, I think. But Romney is growing on me."

Ryan and Romney, she said, share the same beliefs as herself with regard to the economy. "I like their social positions as well, such as pro-life. They are against same-sex marriage and I am also," said Grogan, who is from Des Moines.

She confirmed the Romney's campaign team's decision to start talking less about what Obama has done and more about what Romney would do. "I am hoping they will expand further on the Middle East crisis at present. They have not said much about it."

This one has Romney telling his audience what is becoming a familiar Republican meme: that the welfare "payroll" vote is an in-built voting advantage for Obama and the Democrats:

There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.

Then there's another clip in which Romney says: "Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon [in my mouth].

Bits and pieces of this video have been floating around for a while and it's impossible to verify what it is exactly, or how credible it is, although the Huffington Post reports:

The person who uploaded a series of potentially inflammatory videos from the fundraiser has claimed authorship of them in an email exchange with The Huffington Post. The source said he or she wishes to remain anonymous for professional reasons and to avoid a lawsuit. The videos, which have created a buzz on the Internet, were blurred and at times blacked out to obscure the location of the filming, the source said.

Update: Mother Jones appears to have the whole video with more context, included a fuller version of the "silver spoon" quote which shows it to be selectively edited. The full version seems to be: "Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America."

Finally, Mitt Romney manages to get in his slim connection to Hispanic migrants to the US.

I’ve spoken often about how proud I am of my father. He was born to American parents living in Mexico. When he was five, they left everything behind, and started over in the United States.... Many of you in this room have similar stories.

Of course the most interesting aspect of Mitt Romney speaking to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce national convention is the vexed issue of immigration.

But there's no signs that Romney is changing his stance, even if he isn't exactly shouting about the more more extreme elements of his immigration policy as stated throughout the Republican primaries, such as building a wall along the border with Mexico. "I want to preserve our heritage of robust legal immigration," is as far as he goes. Would that be Arizona's SB1031 "heritage" then?

There's no mention of the Dream Act although Romney does refer to Obama's most recent move to cease deportment of children who were brought to the US without documentation:

Instead of playing immigration politics with these children, I will pursue permanent immigration reform, and I will start by ensuring that those who serve in our military have the opportunity to become legal permanent residents of the country they fought to defend.

Quite what that "permanent immigration reform" is, or when it would happen, Romney doesn't say, other than: "I will work with Republicans and Democrats to permanently fix our immigration system."

Phase Two of the Mitt Romney plan to win over every voting bloc in America continued this afternoon with an appearance before the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce national convention in Los Angeles.

After a warm welcome – it's a friendly crowd – Romney mentions the current crop of GOP Hispanic leaders such as Susanna Martinez, governor of New Mexico, before concluding: "I am convinced that the Republican party is the rightful home of Hispanic Americans."

He then ran through his various familiar policy tropes – not much sign of a reboot here – but he does have a brief detour to take a swipe at Obama for today's trade action against China:

President Obama may think that announcing new trade cases less than two months from Election Day will distract from his record, but the American businesses and workers struggling on an uneven playing field know better. If I’d known all it took to get him to take action was to run an ad citing his inaction on China’s cheating, I would have run one long ago.

The first presidential debate is on 3 October and the question of debate prep came up at the media briefing on-board Air Force One en route to Ohio today, answered by Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki:

Question: Do you have any update on his debate prep going forward? We've seen some reports that he met with Kerry last week. Can you give us sort of any kind of sense of how that's going to work going forward?

Jen Psaki: I can confirm three things. One, he will be at the debates, participating. Two, he will be, let's see, what else can I confirm for you, he's not debated in four years. Three, the longer format of the debate - or the shorter format of the debates, is not always conducive to somebody who gives comprehensive, substantive answers, which we know he tends to do from the number of town halls he's been.

Interesting. Naturally the White House wags were all over that one:

Question: Jen, are you saying he's working on the long-windedness? [Laughter.]

Psaki: I think that he and his team are aware that that is a challenge when you have shorter - when you have the opportunity to give shorter answers, that you can't give a five-minute explanation for an issue. And while Mitt Romney has done 20 debates in the last year, he has not done one in four years, so there certainly is a challenge in that regard.

Obama played up his administration’s new World Trade Organization complaint, which accuses the Chinese government of illegally subsidizing its auto parts industry so as to make products more competitive in the American market. The complaint has particular resonance in states like Ohio, where the auto industry makes up a large share of the economy.

“These are subsidies that directly harm working men and women on the assembly lines in Ohio and Michigan and across the Midwest,” Obama told a crowd of 4,500 at Eden Park in Cincinnati. “It’s not right, it’s against the rules; and we will not let it stand.”

There were no turnout worries today for Barack Obama, who had a campaign event in Cincinnati this morning.

Obama told the crowd of several thousand that Mitt Romney made money from companies that outsourced jobs to China while at Bain Capital. "Don't boo. Vote!" Obama told them when some in the crowd jeered at the mention of Bain.

Obama went on:

You can't stand up to China when all you've done is send them our jobs. You can talk a good game. But I like to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. And my experience has been waking up every single day doing everything I can to make sure that American workers get a fair shot in the global economy.

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill is in the swing state of Iowa, where he is checking out an appearance by Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan there today:

Paul Ryan is set to test-drive the new Republican strategy this afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa. His team say he will talk mainly about what a Romney presidency would do about getting the debt down. It is a theme, his team says, that has a strong resonance in the state. Iowans have one of the lowest amounts of credit card debt in the country and the argument goes, if they can do it, they do not understand why the federal government cannot do it too.

Both Ryan and Joe Biden are speaking at roughly the same time, 3pm-3.30pm CT, although the two are three hours drive apart. Biden in speaking in Burlington, Iowa.

One of the main interests in Ryan is to see what kind of a crowd he attracts. After the announcement that he would be Romney's running-mate, he attracted larger crowds than Romney - not difficult - and there was some over-enthusiastic talk among Republicans that he was the new Sarah Palin, firing up the crowds. But they have been a bit thinner of late.

Ryan's team predicts a few hundred in the audience today. That could just be traditional downplaying of expectations. But they might be right. Three o'clock in the afternoon of a work day is a hard sell, not least, after days of continuous sunshine, the skies have clouded over.

Paul Ryan speaks to supporters and pumpkins last week, flanked by a Secret Service agent. Photograph: Pete Marovich/ZUMA Press/Corbis

The WTO confirmed that the US had filed a case against China and that the two sides would now have a 60-day cooling-off period in which to seek an agreement. If the talks fail, a panel will be set up to decide whether US jobs had been outsourced as a result of subsidies that unfairly cut the cost of Chinese exports.

Sources said that in high-profile cases involving the WTO's bigger members consultations often resulted in failure, and Beijing responded swiftly to the action taken by Obama by challenging measures adopted by the US to prevent the dumping of cheap Chinese goods, including kitchen utensils, steel, tyres, wood flooring, magnets and paper.

Citizens United, the group whose lawsuit opened the door to unlimited political spending by individuals, corporations and unions, has reached a deal with a half dozen television networks to air an hour-long film before Election Day about people who have reversed their support of President Obama.

The conservative production studio announced the agreement on Monday, saying “The Hope and The Change,” a play on Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan, will reach 130 million homes.

The Citizens United film features "40 Democratic and independent voters from seven swing states who backed Obama four years ago and have been disappointed by his first term," according to the Globe. It starts running tomorrow.

Fifty days before the US presidential election, The Telegraph meets the residents of Dunkirk, Ohio - the kind of town that will decide who wins.

Excellent. There is just one problem: Dunkirk and its surrounding region is rock-solid Republican and has been so for many years. It sits in Ohio's 4th congressional district, which hasn't elected a Democrat since 1936, and an area that the Almanac of American Politics describes: "This has been a Republican stronghold since the Civil War."

Oh and it's 98% white, according to the latest census. So to describe it as "the kind of town that will decide who wins," isn't strictly true. It would be more accurate to call it "the kind of town that will vote for a three-legged dog if it was running as a Republican".

But the Senate is proving to be harder for the GOP than many thought possible just a few months ago. In North Dakota, for example, seen as an easy Republican win, the Democratic candidate Heidi Heitkamp is putting up a fight that is worrying some within the Republican party.

The Republican national Senate campaign must be bothered to spend serious money on the above ad. But it's the ad's message that really shows the Republicans are worried: by attempting to link the popular Heitkamp with the unpopular Obama.

Heitkamp is said to be winning the air war with ads like this, which appeal to North Dakota's traditionally independent voters.

Amid a clamor of calls from prominent Republicans for Mr Romney to offer a major policy address to answer voters’ continued questions about his plans, his aides said he would present a series of speeches, television commercials and events promoting his five-point economic policy, even as he concentrates on his next big chance to change the race: the debates.

The NYT top duo of Rutenberg and Zeleny also breezily mention: "Talk of infighting within the Romney headquarters in Boston has been percolating for months," which is always nice to know after the event.

Meanwhile, USA Today says Romney's campaign "is signaling a shift in strategy as polls show the Republican nominee losing ground to President Obama":

The GOP presidential nominee's campaign so far today has unveiled a new TV ad focusing on Romney's plans to boost the middle class. It ties together the themes of more trade, a balanced budget and support for small business as a way to create 12 million jobs.

With the new push, Romney is looking to put behind him a turbulent week that saw him stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East. And he's spent hours preparing for debates, mindful that they may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.

Romney advisers spent the weekend in Boston hashing out a plan to right his struggling campaign. On Monday, top advisers planned to explain how the campaign would change tack as the candidate himself began a major push to Hispanic voters.

So the new Romney push will appeal to grassroots Republicans, independent voters worried about the economy and Hispanic voters? And people say the Romney campaign doesn't have a focused message.

Republicans have been griping for weeks that polls showing Romney behind tend to be built around samples based on 2008 exit polls, when excited Democrats flocked to the polls and many Republicans stayed home. Romney's goal is to ensure that the election day make-up of the electorate is different this time around.

As a result, several days on the campaign trail with Romney last week revealed a candidate almost jarringly different from the one projected from the stage in Tampa last month, and seen most often on TV.

Nationally, it's all about the economy. But at the grassroots it's a very different message. Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins has an unusual metaphor:

Like an unassuming deli with an underground blackjack room in back, the Romney campaign's message looks presentable, if a bit dull, to the casual observer — but spend some time inside, and you'll find the edge.

(3) The policy problem is that the Romney campaign offers nothing but bad news to hardpressed Americans and the broader middle class.

Ouch. "Over course of campaign, Romney has changed from a pragmatic, capable manager into a dog-whistling culture warrior.... voters do care about the q: what will this presidency do for me? And "dick you over" is not a winning answer."

The White House Monday will demand through a world trade panel that China stop subsidizing auto parts made for export, arguing the practice undercuts manufacturers in Ohio and elsewhere by reducing the cost of Chinese auto parts and encourages US companies to outsource jobs, senior administration officials said.

While President Barack Obama travels to Columbus and Cincinnati Monday for campaign appearances, his administration also will ask the World Trade Organization, or WTO, to step up a review of what the White House says are unfair duties that China levies on American-made cars. The case is technically separate from the auto parts case but the administration says it presents another example of China's trade-policy abuse.

An attempt to take the wind out of Mitt Romney's "trade war with China" sails? As if.

Palace intrigue inside the Mitt Romney headquarters in Boston makes an early entry into the 2012 presidential race, thanks to a fuse-setting piece inPolitico that lays bare rivalries and criticisms of the campaign.

The piece details in-fighting involving Romney's botched address to the last night of the Republican national convention in Tampa, and sums up the grumbling within the Republican party at large over what is seen as flawed execution of a muddled message.

Almost as if in response to the Politico piece, published on Sunday, the Romney campaign sought to rebrand this week's appearance by the GOP candidate as a new start to the campaign, with a new message – although no one seems sure what the message is, exactly.

Republican Mitt Romney, who last week struggled with his responses to a major ­foreign-policy crisis in the Middle East, will now turn his focus back to the economy with a new offensive aimed at recharging a campaign that even some allies believe he is losing.

Three Romney advisers told BuzzFeed the campaign's top priority now is to rally conservative Republicans, in hopes that they'll show up on Election Day, and drag their less politically-engaged friends with them... "This is going to be a base election, and we need them to come out to vote," the aide said, explaining the pick.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has decided to shoot one of Romney's foxes this morning, with a revelation in the Cleveland Plain Dealer – an influential outlet in the influential swing state of Ohio – that the US government is taking China to the World Trade Organisation in a dispute over car parts and tariffs.

And there's just 50 days to go until general election day itself on 6 November.